Sometimes I just can't help myself. I just had revelations about the clubbing days and Steve and Matt and Mary Ann and Ginger. I posted them over on Writers Port. There were so many stories, the Delirium rave at the Latvian Embassy, the parking spaces of Queen across from where Speakers Corner was. There was a whole underground swell of excitement in me for that period for what I could recall in that instant and in which I am beginning to find myself again.
If I were to try to describe it all I'd have to start at the middle. The beginning is too far off. I remember the clockwork twisting hands of the Lawnmower man trying to escape his virtual prison on video screens suspended in mid air. Now a days this might be common in a club, but back then it was avante' garde. It had edge. And there was a VR game with a Ptyradactyl that tried to pick you up and throw you if you couldn't kill it. There was the ride of the Tour of the Universe on the CN tower, and the storm troopers running across the highway in the middle of the night. There were the mudsoaked fields where we shucked our own corn under the glaze of Nitrous. There were the in house concert shows where Moby played at the old Masonic Temple and the place that used to be called RPM. There was that celebrity DJ wandering around shaking everybody's hand and somehow Don Cherry got thrown into the mix for a charity video too. I got free CDs and T-Shirts for handing out flyers and dancing on TV. I sold countless vitamin drinks to which I will never see a cent of the work done for. I was like a dead head, traveling the underworld and going where the party went. If I could be called that un-talented member of the Tragically Hip, the one who goes at it both barells but just can't play guitar.
The trip hasn't ended. I'm sitting here in a chair with a beard, afraid of water, and strung out on caffeine and Antidepressants, but that's fine and I'll live with it. After all what else have I got to lose. I'm not lonely, I've got my cyberfriends during the week and they've got me. And I think if I ever thought that the world would get this small in the amount of time it has, ten years ago, I probably would have laughed and shrugged my shoulders and declared it the end.
But we survived the towers falling, we survived the Anthrax, we survived the Evils of the Triad of Terror, and we're still plodding along, Apes like on the Planet Of, and making more bad films with Donny and Mark Wahlberg and the like, and even considering making a batman with an American Psycho. Geez, won't that cripple the minds of the children of tomorrow. It's bad enough that I'm so creeped out by Nicholson I can barely keep myself composed when I watch him act.
I remember some simpler times when I would go to dances on Saturday nights. Times when I was a kid and I could think of nothing better to do than hold a girl on the dancefloor during Stairway to heaven. I did that with a girl once. Her name was Jennifer. She had long blond hair and was presbyterian. The farthest we ever went was to see Top Gun and hold hands a little bit. We were both rather shy and to this day I don't know why I never called her back. I just think without car" STYLE="text-decoration: none; border-bottom: medium solid green;" HREF="http://search.targetwords.com/u.search?x=5977|1||||cars|AA1VDw">cars, you are still kind of a victim of the environment. I think she's been doing well for herself. I see her around time and again and I wonder if she even recognizes me. I'm so different from what I was then.
I remember catching a Northern Pike on the docks of the Thousand Islands and hatching eggs in Kindergarden in an incubator and drawing on the etch a sketch in 2nd grade. I remember losing a friend to drugs in 5th grade and switching schools so many times I can't count them on my hands because I was "gifted." While I can read and write, I can't do much else. It seems I was born for interfacing with this machine. My father worked for a company that made software. And I guess it just got passed on. Sometimes at night I'll cruise along at half speed through Slashdot or some other journal and kind of half understand the engineering jargon. Are these Borg's human? Don't they know that there are whole worlds of possibility that they can't possibly enjoy unless they know the word? Jargon is a whack of beans. I can spit it too. I can spit C++ and Java and Linux, and GNU and Jaguar, and OSX and whatever else they are brewing in their custom designed Lan Party Fraternalisms of non-enlightened gibberish. I was there. I saw Future Shock and saw that yes, computer scientists have to trip on Acid before they can go to a dance party. It's just in the nature of things. It's good for you, let go the book said.
I'll tell you, I just made a commitment to myself in 1998 that I found in an old envelope upstairs. That commitment was to know America and my roots and dig up as much as possible. But I'm beginning to believe its not just about that any more. It's about the Earth. And UNICEF and the International Red Cross and the Soup Kitchen on the other side of the city. The hands we shake are our own as we grasp at straws hoping for that scrap of day old pizza at the bakery or that bit of rice we eat on our plates as we work our fingers to the bone.
Ask anyone, they'll tell you I'm a bum, I'm a smoker, a gambler, an ugly son of a bitch, and a rotten whisky breath with the women, but I'll tell you, I'd rather look like Einstein and Smell like a sewer than spend one moment having to lay off thousands upon thousands and then go to bed at night and pray for salvation because the bottom line is worth more than a child's education. These Republicans have no value for education. They would like to see everyone self taught. They have no feeling of responsibility for it. Instead of building schools they are building prisons and they are doing it with our Tax dollars. I'm not afraid to share my views.
Someone always says well Chris, the tack that stands up gets nailed down. And I say, the more the merrier, lets build a deck. We'll start with one word, fill up a line, then a page, then a chapter, then a book, then the world. Not a single person has ever countered me on this. Literacy is a must. Not only with words but with computers" STYLE="text-decoration: none; border-bottom: medium solid green;" HREF="http://search.targetwords.com/u.search?x=5977|1||||computers|AA1VDw">computers. There's a global war going on for control of your desktop. People probably aren't even aware of that. Microsoft vs. Linux, Linux Vs. Unix. Whoever wins gets the whole vacuum cleaner market and a whole lot more. My cell phone uses windows.
Isn't that interesting....
I need to do some ruminating. I'll be back for Part ?
If I were to try to describe it all I'd have to start at the middle. The beginning is too far off. I remember the clockwork twisting hands of the Lawnmower man trying to escape his virtual prison on video screens suspended in mid air. Now a days this might be common in a club, but back then it was avante' garde. It had edge. And there was a VR game with a Ptyradactyl that tried to pick you up and throw you if you couldn't kill it. There was the ride of the Tour of the Universe on the CN tower, and the storm troopers running across the highway in the middle of the night. There were the mudsoaked fields where we shucked our own corn under the glaze of Nitrous. There were the in house concert shows where Moby played at the old Masonic Temple and the place that used to be called RPM. There was that celebrity DJ wandering around shaking everybody's hand and somehow Don Cherry got thrown into the mix for a charity video too. I got free CDs and T-Shirts for handing out flyers and dancing on TV. I sold countless vitamin drinks to which I will never see a cent of the work done for. I was like a dead head, traveling the underworld and going where the party went. If I could be called that un-talented member of the Tragically Hip, the one who goes at it both barells but just can't play guitar.
The trip hasn't ended. I'm sitting here in a chair with a beard, afraid of water, and strung out on caffeine and Antidepressants, but that's fine and I'll live with it. After all what else have I got to lose. I'm not lonely, I've got my cyberfriends during the week and they've got me. And I think if I ever thought that the world would get this small in the amount of time it has, ten years ago, I probably would have laughed and shrugged my shoulders and declared it the end.
But we survived the towers falling, we survived the Anthrax, we survived the Evils of the Triad of Terror, and we're still plodding along, Apes like on the Planet Of, and making more bad films with Donny and Mark Wahlberg and the like, and even considering making a batman with an American Psycho. Geez, won't that cripple the minds of the children of tomorrow. It's bad enough that I'm so creeped out by Nicholson I can barely keep myself composed when I watch him act.
I remember some simpler times when I would go to dances on Saturday nights. Times when I was a kid and I could think of nothing better to do than hold a girl on the dancefloor during Stairway to heaven. I did that with a girl once. Her name was Jennifer. She had long blond hair and was presbyterian. The farthest we ever went was to see Top Gun and hold hands a little bit. We were both rather shy and to this day I don't know why I never called her back. I just think without car" STYLE="text-decoration: none; border-bottom: medium solid green;" HREF="http://search.targetwords.com/u.search?x=5977|1||||cars|AA1VDw">cars, you are still kind of a victim of the environment. I think she's been doing well for herself. I see her around time and again and I wonder if she even recognizes me. I'm so different from what I was then.
I remember catching a Northern Pike on the docks of the Thousand Islands and hatching eggs in Kindergarden in an incubator and drawing on the etch a sketch in 2nd grade. I remember losing a friend to drugs in 5th grade and switching schools so many times I can't count them on my hands because I was "gifted." While I can read and write, I can't do much else. It seems I was born for interfacing with this machine. My father worked for a company that made software. And I guess it just got passed on. Sometimes at night I'll cruise along at half speed through Slashdot or some other journal and kind of half understand the engineering jargon. Are these Borg's human? Don't they know that there are whole worlds of possibility that they can't possibly enjoy unless they know the word? Jargon is a whack of beans. I can spit it too. I can spit C++ and Java and Linux, and GNU and Jaguar, and OSX and whatever else they are brewing in their custom designed Lan Party Fraternalisms of non-enlightened gibberish. I was there. I saw Future Shock and saw that yes, computer scientists have to trip on Acid before they can go to a dance party. It's just in the nature of things. It's good for you, let go the book said.
I'll tell you, I just made a commitment to myself in 1998 that I found in an old envelope upstairs. That commitment was to know America and my roots and dig up as much as possible. But I'm beginning to believe its not just about that any more. It's about the Earth. And UNICEF and the International Red Cross and the Soup Kitchen on the other side of the city. The hands we shake are our own as we grasp at straws hoping for that scrap of day old pizza at the bakery or that bit of rice we eat on our plates as we work our fingers to the bone.
Ask anyone, they'll tell you I'm a bum, I'm a smoker, a gambler, an ugly son of a bitch, and a rotten whisky breath with the women, but I'll tell you, I'd rather look like Einstein and Smell like a sewer than spend one moment having to lay off thousands upon thousands and then go to bed at night and pray for salvation because the bottom line is worth more than a child's education. These Republicans have no value for education. They would like to see everyone self taught. They have no feeling of responsibility for it. Instead of building schools they are building prisons and they are doing it with our Tax dollars. I'm not afraid to share my views.
Someone always says well Chris, the tack that stands up gets nailed down. And I say, the more the merrier, lets build a deck. We'll start with one word, fill up a line, then a page, then a chapter, then a book, then the world. Not a single person has ever countered me on this. Literacy is a must. Not only with words but with computers" STYLE="text-decoration: none; border-bottom: medium solid green;" HREF="http://search.targetwords.com/u.search?x=5977|1||||computers|AA1VDw">computers. There's a global war going on for control of your desktop. People probably aren't even aware of that. Microsoft vs. Linux, Linux Vs. Unix. Whoever wins gets the whole vacuum cleaner market and a whole lot more. My cell phone uses windows.
Isn't that interesting....
I need to do some ruminating. I'll be back for Part ?
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